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2696 
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^CLASSIFIED 
SEE EXCHANGE & GIFT DIV. 

^CLASSIFICATION FILF no. 


OF?ICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES 
Research and Analysis Branch 


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R & A No. 2696 


THE TRANSFER OF THE ASSYRIANS OF IRAQ, 


Description 

A short historical survey of the Assyrian 
minority in Iraq and its unsuccessful 
a11 emp t s at e. a Lgrat ion . 


31 October 194A 




Collected eel 










L. 


1 






Summary 


TABLE OE CONTENTS 



Page 

ii 


I. Introduction... 1 

II. The Background of the Problem. 1 

III. Attempts at Resettlement. 3 

IV. Break-Down of the Resettlement Plan. 8 


SEN! ARY 

Some 25,000 Assyrians, who had come to Iraq as refugees 
at the end of the first World War, have attempted ever since 
to emigrate, but have been unable to find a country of reception. 
They now hope for resettlement by the Allies at the end of this 
war • 


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THE TRANSFER OF THE ASSYRIANS OF IRAQ, 


I. INTRODUCTION 

The problem of the resettlement of the Assyrian pop¬ 
ulation of Iraq is one which has occupied international 
attention since ea^ly in the last war. The problem 'in itself 
is a minor one, since it involves a very small ethnic-religious 
group. Because international machinery has been invoked, 
however, the issue assumes some significance, and serves to 
indicate the difficulties which arise in population transfers 
of this character. 

Recent intelligence indicates that the leaders of the 
Assyrian minority in Iraq have decided to organize their 
followers in order to seek recognition at the Peace Conference, 
expressing the hope that, under the Atlantic Charter, the 
United States will aid them in finding a place to settle. 

In view of the probable revival of interest in the 
problem, and as an indication of the nature of some of the 
problems involved in resettlement, the present report seeks 
to present an historical review of the events connected with 
the Assyrian transfer. 

II. THE BACKGROUND OF THE PROBLEM 

The Assyrians (or Nestorians) are described by the 
Information Section of the League of Nations as a "Nation- 
Church” bearing "the shadowy heritage of the ancient name of 
Assyrian,” and being "undoubted successors of the greatness 
of the Assyrian Church."-*- At the outbreak of World War I their 
number was estimated at 155,000, comprising three main groups: 2 

80,000 inhabited the Tigris valley, from the plain'of Mosul 
to the hilly country. 

35,000 inhabited the plateaus of Urmia and Salmas in Persian 
Azerbaijan and in the mountains of the Persian side 
of the border.. 


1 . 

2 . 


League of Nations Questions , No. 5, The Settlement of the 
Assyrians . Geneva, 1935. Information Section, p.3. 

Simpson,- Sir' John Hope. The Refugee Problem. Report of a 
survey. 1939, p. 47. It should be noted In this connection 
that all economic and demographic data for this area are only 
appr ox ima. t e. .^ ^ _ 


1 
















40,000 lived in the Hakkiari mountains, in the.neighbor¬ 
hood of the frontiers of Turkey, Russia,and Persia. 

When Turkey entered the last war in November 1914, both 
the Turks and the Russians bid for the support of the Hakkiari 
Assyrians. In the spring of 1915 the Assyrians decided to 
join the Allies. After determined resistance, they were driven 
by the Turkish forces from their mountain homes. Some 40,000 
took refuge at Urmia at the end of 1915* Together with the 
Persian Assyrians they fought on the side of the Russians until 
the Russian front collapsed in 1917. They managed to hold out 
for over a year, but in the summer of 1913 the 70,000 Urmia 
and Hakkiari Assyrians had no alternative but to retreat in the 
direction of the British forces in Mesopotamia. Moving 300 miles 
southeastward with their families, livestock, and possessions, 
they suffered heavily from attacks by the Turks, Kurds, and 
Persians. Less than 50,000 ultimately reached the British 
garrison in Hamadan. 

They were housed in several la^-ge refugee camps set up 
under British auspices in the neighborhood of Baghdad or Mosul. 
Some of.the Urmia refugees returned to Persia. The group from 
districts south of the Hakkiari mountains also returned. But 
the mountain tribes, numbering some 15,000 per sons, remained in 
Iraq. Efforts were made to enable them to return to their old 
homes, in the hope that the boundary between Turkey and Iraq 
would be so drawn as to include that area In Iraq. However, 
the Council of the League of Nations assigned, in December 1925, 
the Hakkiari district to Turkey. 2 The Turkish government 
decided that the Turkish Amnesty Law did not cover the Assyrians 
who had fought against Turkey in the war, and that they would 
not be permitted to re-enter Turkey. Assyrians who had reoccupied 
their old homes were driven out by armed force 

IT League of~ations Questions . No. 5, p.5: Simpson, op.cit_p.49 
2. Special Report of H.H. Q-over nment on the Progress of iraa* 

1920-1931. rc“.'0/58 Qf 193U, p.TbT. : -~ 

3- Toynbee. Survey of International Affairs . 1925, Vol. I, p. 


501 










III. ATTEMPTS AT RdSdTTLrMdNT 


As a result of the rejection of the Assyrians by 
Turkey, it ‘became necessary to face the prospect of establishing 
a permanent home for more than 20,000 Assyrians who were 
scattered at that period over the Mosul liwa within the 
boundaries of the Iraq State. Although the Mosul liwa had an 
estimated density of population of only 22 persons per square 
kilometer of cultivated area,- 1 - the Iraq government declared that 
it off-erod no possibility for a mass resettlement of the 
Assyrians. The creation of an Assyrian enclave in the Arbil 
liwa (15 persons per square kilometer of cultivated land)^ 
proved to be impossible, as it would have involved removal of 
a ICurdish and Iraqi agricultural population to piovide the 
required land.-' However, the failure of all the envisaged re¬ 
settlement schemes cannot be ascribed to lack of land for re¬ 
settlement. Iraq is one of the most undexpopulated countries 
in the world. Its area is 370,000 square kilometerstand its 
population in 1920 did not exceed 2,850,000. "The density of 
population in Iraq is low even in comparison with the low level 
common to the neighboring Oriental countries," states . 

Alfred Bonne.^ In a paper prepared in 1926 for the Royal 
Central Asian Society, la’far Pasha -,al Askar i, 4 the Prime Minister 
of Iraq, stated: "Lhat Iraq wants above everything is more 
population. t? 

The. real causes of the failure of all the attempts to 
settle the Assyrians in Iraq in a single homogeneous community 
are described by the League of Nations* Information Section as 
"ill-feeling between, certain sections of the Arab population and 
this (Assyrian) small Christian minority," the greater part of 

17 Bonn-, xilfiud. Thu Economic Development of the Middle East . 

Jerusalem, 1943, p. 10lH 

2. Ibid . . 

3. Simpson, op. oit ., p f 52. * 

4* Bonne, op. cit., p. 1Q7. 















which was not indigenous to the country,^ The idea of a 
closed Assyrian settlement in Iraq was abandoned. The alternate 
solution, individual absorption of the Assyrians into the Iraqi 
population, but with the maintenance of their religious freedom 
appears to have had reasonable prospects of success* Many 
Assyrians received land, and, by the end of 1930, it was 
estimated that only about 300 families remained to be settled ,2 
However, the Anglo-Iraq treaty of 30 June 1930, which 
provided for the surrender by Great Britain of the Iraq mandate 
and the independence of Iraq, created much anxiety among the 
Assyrians, who were well aware of the problems faced by ethnic 
and religious minorities in an independent Arab state. In 
October 1931, Assyrian petitions presented to the League of 
Nations stated that ,? .it will be impossible for them (the 
Assyrians) to live in Iraq after the withdrawal of the (British) 
Mandate, They therefore ask that arrangements be made for the 
transfer of the Assyrians in Ixaq to a country under the rule 
of the Western Nations, or, if this is not possible, to Syria, 

The Iraq declaration, in May 1932, including guaranties for the 
protection of minorities, had by no means dissipated these 
apprehensions. In 1932, when Iraq became a member of the 
League of Nations, the League’s Council had before it petitions 
from the Assyrians asking; that they be either transferred to a 
different country whose protection they could enjoy, or that they 
be settled in Iraq in a compact community possessing local 
autonomy. The Council adopted, the view, however, that the demand 
for administrative autonomy within'Iraq could not be accepted; 
on the other hand no territory for a compact community of 
Assyrians from Iraq was made available.^ 

XT League of Nations Questions , No. 5, P. 12. 

2 . Ibid ., p. 13. 

3. Maiek Jusut. ' The British Betrayal of the Assyrians . 

Chicago, 1936 , p. 203. ' 

4• League of Nations Questions , No. 5 , p. 


15. ‘ 








Disappointed in the results of their representations, 
some 800 men, leaving their families behind, crossed the Syrian 
border on 22 July 1933, in the belief that the Flench authorities 
would provide them with land. They were, however, ordeied by 
the French to return to Iraq. After they crossed the frontier 
again a clash with local detachments of the Iraqi Army occulted. 
Many of them were killed and wounded. Some 550 took refuge in 
Syria, where they were interned by the Flench authorities. As 
a consequence of this incident, passions were inflamed on both 
sides. A violent agitation convulsed the country. It 
culminated in the wholesale massacre of Assyrian men in Simmel, 
on 11 August 1933, while in 60 neighboring villages robbing and 
looting continued during the following days. The survivors, 
some 1,500, mostly vyomen and children, were sent by the Iraq 
Government to a camp at Mosul,1 

These tragic events convinced all parties involved that 
the Assyrian problem in Iraq was beyond local remedy. The Iraq 
Government impressed upon the Council of .the League of Nations 
that it was essential to provide a new home for those Assyrians 
"who wished to leave or w r ere unable peaceably to be incorporated 
into the Iraqi State. "2 -p’ ie Council was unanimously of the same 
opinion. It set up on 15 September 1933, a Committee of Six to 
prepare a scheme for transfer and permanent settlement of the 
Iraqi Assyrian community. 

"From October 1933 to the middle of 1935," reports the 
informative publication of the League of Nations, "the Committee 

searched- the world for a suitable place in which to settle the 

$ 

Assyrian people, and there is not a continent in which it did 
not consider possibilities."3 investigation commissions were 

17 Le ague - 'of~Nat ions QrUes t i ons, No,. 5,pp7l6-17; Simpson, op.cit . 

P.- 53r ' ' ' 

2. League o f Nat ions. Offieiai Journ al, December 1933, p. 1645. 

3. League of Nations 9,u '~s Lions, No. 5, p. '22. 










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sent to the state of Parana in Brasil, and to British Guiana. 

The Parana report was favorable, but the project had to be 
abandoned owing to the adoption by the Brazilian Parliament o^ 
a law restricting immigration. The investigation in British 
Guiana led to the conclusion that it is "more than doubtful 
whether the Assyrians could bu settled there on* a sufficiently 
large scale. 

The Committee therefore concentrated its attention on the 

possibilities of transfer and settlement of the Assyrians in 

Syria, where a nucleus and a preC^dunt had already been established 

in 1934 when the 550 Assyrians who had taken refuge there in 

August 1933 were settled provisionally in the Upper Khabur 

valley; later, they were allowed to send for their families who 

had -remained in Iraq (some r,45G persons) • Thvjre had also been 

an additional influx of Assyrians from Iraq and by September 1935 

some 6,000 Assyrians were living in the Khabur area; they were 

rapidly becoming self-supporting with regard to the more 

2 

important foodstuffs.^ 

Both Turkey and Iraq were, however, averse to the mass 
settlement of Assyrians in Khabur, which is situated near the Turkish 
and Iraq frontiers.3 The French'authorities.finally agreed to allow th 
permanent establishment of the Assyrians (not only of those who 
had been provisionally settled in Khabur, but also of those who 
had remained in Iraq and wished to settle elsewhere) in the 
sparsely populated and marshy Ghab plain in the Alarvite territory 
which had the advantage of being remote from these frontiers 
(it was situated some 25 miles to the northwest of Hama and about 
the same distance from the sea), As another advantage of the 
Ghab settlement, it was. stressed that the immediate neighbors of 

•TT Ibid ,, pp. 23-24. • ' 

2. leag ue of Nations•Documents. C 352, M 179, 1935 * VII. 

3. Simpson, op. cit ., p. 54. 









vn | 


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the prospective Assyrian settlers were the Christian groups 
and that the administrative authority to which they would be 
ultimately subject was the separate district of Latakia, 
administered by a French Governor and inhabited almost ex¬ 
clusively by non-Moslem groups.1 Some 24,000 Assyrians from 
the Mosul area -- even those who had property and did not 
complain of conditions — expressed the unconditional wish to 
leave for the Ghab "without asking for any details of their 
future settlement." On the other hand a group of six tribal 
chiefs claiming to speak for 8,000 Assyrians saiA that they 
could not state th^ir view until they knew what would be their 
economic and legal position in their new home. Similar results 
were registered at Kirkuk and Baghdad. 2 The Assyrians were 
ready to go. The Iraqi Government was ready to let them go and 
offered even a contribution of £125,000, calculated on a basis 
of £10 for ev^ry Assyrian leaving Iraq up to 12,500 persons 
later it doubled this offor.^ The cost of the whole Ghab settle¬ 
ment scheme was calculated at 86 million French francs (a little 
ov^r £1,075,000). The following contributions were enlisted 

£250,000 from the Iraq Government 
£250;000 ?? British Government 

£3*)6;000 " " Government of the French Mandated Territories 

£ 61,000 * ” " League of Nations 

Thus, some £937,000 out of £1,075,000 were provided for, 
a sum adequate to Secure a material amount of progress with the 
me: scheme. Detailed irrigation, settlement, educational, and 
administrative projects' were elaborated. 

The Information Section of the League of Nations stated 


early in 1935 that the League "has now initiated and helped to 
finance a scheme for their (Assyrian) transfer from Iraq and 


1* League of Nations Questions , 
2 League of Nations Documents . 

2 o Ibid q ih - 

4. League *~of Nat ions - Q,uo st ions , 
. Simpson, op. cit ., p. 54 


No.5, 'pp• 27,-30. 

C 352, M 159, 1935, VII,p. 9. 

No.5, p. 44* 











- 8 - 



settlement in the Levant states — a work of humanity and 
appeasement,"! The Khabur settlement was considered a temporary 
expedient, pending the completion of Ghab scheme, 

IV. B^AIC-DC .N OF TIA ATLmIAr;T PLAIT 
In the spring of 1935 the situation completely and abruptly 
changed. In two letters, addressed by the French Government to 
the Chairman of the League*s Committee for the settlement of the 
Assyrians on 14 -^pril 1935, and later to the Secretary-General of 
the League on 23 Tune 1936, the French Government announced its 
decision to apply for the termination of the French Mandate in 

p 

Syria. In view of the growing nationalist feeling among the 
Arabs of °yria xvho bitterly opposed the establishment of an¬ 
other Christian minority in the country, prospects of a 
successful settlement of Assyrians in the Ghab area were 
practically eliminated. 

The League*s Committee for the settlement of Assyrians 

was thus forced to recommend to the Council the definite 
/ 

abandonment of the Ghab scheme. On 4 July 1936, the Council 
approved this recommendation. It instructed the Committee to 
study the possibilities of "settlement elsewhere than in Iraq of 
the Assyrians of Iraq who still wished to leave that country." 

But "all these studies and investigations proved fruitless." 

The- Committee therefore reached the definite conclusion that the 
settlement outside of Iraq of those Assyrians who still remained 
Ux.me did not at that time seem to be practicable. It stated 
further that it was also impossible to arrange for the transfer 
of the Assyrians settled in the Khabur valley in Syria, whose 
number had in the meantime reached 8,800.-^ 

The transfer of Assyrians had thus come to nought. The 
League of Nations Council failed in its efforts to secure the 

l7 League of Nations Questions ' No. 5 ' 9 p-« 46 ; 

2. League of Nations Documentsl.C-387, M 258, .1937. VIII. and 
C 440, 1937, VII. ' ' .... 

3« League of Nations Documents . C 387, M 258, 1937, VII. 












- 9 - 


Settlement of somo 25,000 to 30,000 Assyrians who had since 
1919 been the object of international attention. Admitting its 
own failure., the Resettlement Committee decided that*. 

a. The Assyrians who remained in Iraq "will have to 
continue to reside in Iraq” and the Committee "will not be 
called to deal with them.’ These Assyrians should, as far as 
possible, become incorporated in the Iraqi population as 
ordinary citizens of the Iraqi State,”1 The League T s Council 
took note of the vague declaration of the Iraqi Foreign Minister 
that the Assyrian community in Iraq will "enjoy the benefits of 
the declaration on the protection of minorities signed by the 
Iraqi Government,., on 19 May 1932. 

b. The Khabur settlement which was to be abolished as 
soon as the Ghab lands had been made ready to receive the whole 
of the Assyrians transferred from Iraq, was now proclaimed a 
permanent home for the some 9,000 Assyrians living there. The 
League of Nations took over the direct responsibility for its con¬ 
solidation on a self-supporting basis.3 This decision completely 
ignored the paramount problem of the Khabur settlement, that of 
the security of a sedentary agricultural Christian population 

in a jl emote district, in close proximity to the Turkish frontier 
and liable to incursions of aggressive Moslem nomadic tribes. 

In a letter to The Times (5 January 1933) Canon Wigram stated 
that the area of the Khabur River "is regularly raided by Kurds 
and ledouins, from whom no protection can be given." 

Sir John Hope Simpson cautiously observes that "the permanence 
cf these (Khabur) colonies will depend on the attitude of the 
Syrian Government towards the Christian minorities after the 
termination of the Mandate."^ The prospects seem not to be 
too bright. Professor W. F. Albright, who has lived in 

IT League of Nations Docume nts„ C 3^7, M 25B, 1937, VII. 

2 # Mina tes~ of thJ 'Counci 1 , 29 September 1937. 

3, Minutes -of the Council , 29 September 1937* 

Op. cit.,P« 53. 


*+ • 











Palestine and Syria for many, years and who. “had,, made personal 
contacts among numerous Christian Arabs reports that "the 
Christians of Syria have no more confidence in their eventual 
future as a minority in a Moslem. State than the Nestorians 
(Assyrians) of Iraq or the Copts of Egypt, both of whom are 
hated and despised (quite unjustly) by the Moslems. 


1. Albright,-V'. F• Japhet in the Tents of Shem , 
December, 1942. 


Asia 











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